Well...I guess...although Wendy O. Williams only retired there songless until her self-exiting of this planet Earth. I used to see her at the Willi Food Coop sometimes.

How about others with more claim to Mansfield/Storrs like Rivers Cuomo of Weezer or freakin' Peter Tork!

Come on, The Monkees, my friend!! I am not being sarcastic. Many years ago I saw Peter Tork at New London SailFest and he was great! Played acoustic guitar & banjo, lots of great self-penned stuff and a healthy dose of Grateful Dead as well.

These are musicians that are NOT done making music and from the Storrs area. Rumour has it Peter STILL lives there.

And that's not even broaching the long-gone but nonetheless illustrious and never-to-be-equaled Shaboo Inn, legendary first American venue of some unknown English trio named The Police where they played to a crowd of 10's (IOW the place was empty)...where Aerosmith played "Dream On" LIVE FOR THE FIRST TIME!

Then there is David "Lefty" Foster, still based there and still gigs there quite often, even while playing for all the High Rollers down the road with his band the Mohegan Sun All-Stars.

A partial list of musicians who have played under the Water Tower in Storrs includes-

Picture this - you've driven 45 minutes down these twisty, hilly state highways past the glow-in-the-dark Smokey the Bear (if you've been there, you know what I mean) drinkin' a beer or three while smokin' a twisty-wait, didn't I say that already?

Finally onto good old U.S. Route 6 (the same U.S. Route that used to run from the very tip of Cape Cod AKA Provincetown, MA stickin' way out there in the Atlantic Ocean all the way across the country to the freakin' Pacific Shore (until California screwed up the maps forevermore by terminating Route Six at it's border) until you know yer gettin' close because of the 1/2-mile-long stretch of Interstate-type Divided Highway out in the Middle of Nowhere (again, if you've been there...)

Suddenly on the right is that green street sign "Conantville Road" so you turn and start following an even-twistier little back road until there is a stop sign...damn, do we go straight or turn left onto this even-smaller side lane??

Good luck choosing if the night is young but if you're getting there after 9PM just turn off the car engine and listen...off to the left through the woods...SHABOO! So turn onto that tiny lane and prepare to ROCK 'N' ROLL!!

Don't be fooled by the picture of the little ol' roadside barbeque beer garden in the video - just listen to the lyrics as Elvin Bishop sings

There's a jumpin' little juke jointway out in the stickshalf a mile down a dirt roadoffa Highway Six.Ain't near no town,ain't close to no city - those folks get downtil it's a doggone pity!Ol' Bishop's's bandplaying that low down funk.Man you oughta see that little ol' juke joint jump, jump, jump!!

<quoted text>Thank you for your imput, and point well taken! You're very fortunate to have seen so very many fine acts. That list you compiled is very varied, and I dig that!

I'm very sorry, Musikologist, to have given the impression I had been to this entire list of musicians. Truth is, I was present at only a small fraction of these acts although there may have been others as well, long forgotten as a result of alchohol-fogged memory and time. Indeed, the Shaboo itself is a victim of time, having burned to the ground 30 years ago (1982) and lives on in name only although holding a legendary position in musical history of the New England (and particularly, of course, Connecticut) area.

There have been efforts to keep the name alive including a short-lived attempt to establish some sort of Shaboo II in New Haven, CT. as well as a series of benefit concerts for the local Willimantic/Mansfield hospital (attended by some of the Shaboo's original founders and musical acts) but there will never be another juke-joint-jumpin' place like the Shaboo Inn!!

Thanx, Big M, but I don't think MB20 or EB&TA ever played the Shaboo...while they was a-rockin' under the water tower for a l-o-n-g time, Matchbox Twenty was a decade too late and Eric Burden (with the Animals, at least...maybe he coulda showed up with WAR...) a decade too early.

No, I'm not the Big Al who DID play there, but Monterey is indeed a True Story just as EB&TA told it in one of their last (American) hits before dis-banding! Sure would like to hear that Grateful Dead set...oh, wait, here it is!!

No, I'm not the Big Al who DID play there, but Monterey is indeed a True Story just as EB&TA told it in one of their last (American) hits before dis-banding! Sure would like to hear that Grateful Dead set...oh, wait, here it is!!http://archive.org/details/gd67-06-18.sbd.man...

While there are a couple of unofficial "live" albums recorded at The Shaboo (Miles Davis - Jan. 26, 1974, for one, as well as J. B. Hutto & The New Hawks from 1979) THIS is a complete Early Show/Late Show combo of Tom Waits appearance Under the Water Tower in Storrs on Nov. 9, 1976 featuring Mr. Waits in full Heart of Saturday Night/Nighthawks at the Diner mode...my favourite period of his...

His remarks concerning the exotic locale (the nearby once-small-but-now-huge East Brook Mall) are hilarious. "I love this little shopping center down here. We got in here early just so I could hang around there, heh-heh".

Note-EBM is NOT huge but has indeed grown enough that its parking lot has completely engulfed the former Shaboo property. Actually, the parking lot is about 50 FEET below where The Shaboo once stood, as earth movers obliterated the hillside to create a flat lot for paving :(

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